Working with Inheritance in Lectora

Working with Inheritance in Lectora

When developing content in Lectora® and Lectora® Online, one of the biggest timesaving features that the program offers is a concept called inheritance. The scenario in which you’ll realize the greatest benefits from using inheritance is when you have an object or a group of common objects that need to appear on more than one page of your title.

Below are 4 different scenarios describing how to utilize inheritance within your Lectora titles.

Scenario #1:

For instance, let’s imagine that you’re developing a title and you need to focus on your course interface. In Lectora and Lectora Online, we’ve simplified this process by allowing you to place all navigation that you want inherited at the title level; meaning any object you place at the title level will be inherited throughout your course. Think of your title level as a master slide in PowerPoint, and anything you place on a master slide is displayed throughout your project—same concept in Lectora.

At your title level, you maywant to place your company logo, borders, table of contents, course title and navigation.

By placing these objects at the title level, they will now be inherited or displayed on all chapters, sections and pages within your Lectora and/or Lectora Online title.

Scenario #2:

Inheritance works the same with Chapters and Sections. Let’s say you want a specific image, text block, action etc. to appear on all pages within a chapter or section. To do so you can add that object at the chapter or section level within the title explorer, and it becomes inherited.

Any objects added directly to a chapter will appear on every page in that chapter including pages that are inside of a section within the chapter. Objects added directly to a section will appear on every page in that section, and objects added directly to a page will appear only on that page.

Scenario #3:

Just as you can inherit items, you can also disinherit or exclude items. As an example, you may not need a next button on the last page of your title. The inherit settings are available within all chapter, section and page properties. If the object is excluded within the properties of a chapter, it will not appear on any page within that chapter. If the object is excluded within the properties of a section, it will not appear on any page within that section, and if the object is excluded within the properties of a page, then the object will be excluded from that page.

To accomplish the scenario above, follow these steps:

1. Select the last page in your title and open up the corresponding page properties:

3. From the Inheritance Settings use the drop-down list to select from one of three Inheritance options:

*Inherit ALL objects from parents: Places all objects within the Inherited list. These objects will continue to appear throughout your chapter, section or page.

*NO objects from parents: Places all objects within the Excluded list. These objects will not appear within the chapter, section or page.

*Specific / Exclude objects from parents: Allows you to select the objects to inherit or exclude. Select an object in either list and click the arrow buttons to move items from one list to the other in the direction of the buttons. Select several objects by holding down the Ctrl key while selectingobjects.

*For our example, we will be selecting Specific / Exclude objects from parents.

4. Select what objects you want inherited or excluded by using the arrows to move objects from one column to the other. In this example, the next button has been excluded.

Scenario #4:

Changing the inheritance settings for an assignable unit:

With the inheritance capabilities, objects you add directly to the main title will appear on every page of your title.

Furthermore, any objects added directly to an assignable unit will appear on every page in that assignable unit including pages that are inside of a section within the assignable unit.

The inherit settings are available within properties of the assignable units. If the object is excluded within the properties of an assignable unit, it will not appear on any page within that assignable unit.